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Teaching and Learning

Young children primarily learn when they feel happy, safe and secure in supportive surroundings. A well-planned environment together with a broad and balanced curriculum of formal and informal education will allow for the social, emotional, physical and educational development of each individual child.

The basic skills of numeracy and literacy are given a high priority, but a balanced curriculum is vital for the development of the whole child, and we encourage physical, artistic and creative work of all kinds. Our curriculum is designed to meet the requirements of the scholarship examinations at 7+ and 11+.

In the Infant department an active approach is taken to all teaching so that learning is fun and the child is often unaware that learning is taking place. Each child is treated as an individual and is encouraged to develop at his or her own rate.

The Infant day falls roughly into two categories. Whenever possible the more formal work is undertaken during the morning and in the afternoon when the children are not as ‘fresh’ the more informal and practical work is taught.

As the children transfer from the Infant Department we like the transition to be as smooth as possible. This is obviously quite a big step in a child’s life as they are moving from the security of having a form teacher for almost all subjects to a much more complex situation of being taught each subject by a different teacher.

In general, pupils benefit from specialist teaching – especially in the core subjects. However, pastoral care is still paramount as each form has its own form teacher. This ensures contact time at 8.50am for registration and at 12.15pm when the form teacher sits with the children at lunch. The form teachers return to their own classes at 3.30pm when the children have the opportunity to discuss any problems they may have. The teachers then dismiss their own class at 3.45pm. As pupils have most lessons in their own classroom this becomes a ‘home base’ for them and contact with the form teacher can easily be arranged if necessary. This also ensures that little time is wasted in ‘travelling’ and most of the essential equipment is to hand.